Ohio Sen. Rob Portman not only had six meetings with Mitt Romney's top aides, he met with Beth Myers, the woman vetting Romney's vice president possibilities. Long the leader in the veepstakes held in the collective political pundit imagination, the Senator's comments are the first actual confirmation that a Romney-Portman ticket could become real. If you imagine the veepstakes as Mario Kart (or the Queen's Croquet or a heated round of bridge or anything since this is imaginary), then former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty is making a late surge while Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie are falling off. "You know, I talk to those guys all the time on how things are going in Ohio and what the message ought to be back home in Ohio, so, it was a good-good day, we had six meetings in about six hours, so it was busy," Portman told ABC News Tuesday. Then he added that half the meetings were fundraisers, and the meetings weren't focused on vetting, so they weren't a big deal. There might be a good reason for that modesty: Christie seems less likely to be picked as Romney's veep, especially after a New York Times report that Romney's campaign noted his lack of punctuality and suggested they wouldn't want a running mate who'd upstage the candidate.

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Elspeth Reeve